No Fortunate Sons
by AndSoIWrite
Summary: John always told his boys they were soldiers. Pre-series. Oneshot.


**A/N:** This much-pathetic oneshot was born out of a few things: 1. I'm totally procrastinating on my multi-chapter fics 2. The finale left my heart raw and bleeding and in need of some wee!chesters to fix it 3. It's an American holiday today, Memorial Day; if you don't know what that is, this fic might not make as much sense.  
The title is a play on "Fortunate Son", a song by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

* * *

John always told his boys they were soldiers. Even before the fire, Dean had been enthralled with the tiny plastic army men that he found in the toy aisle of the grocery store. The four-year-old spent hours sprawled on the living room carpet, waging wars and battles of a child's imagination. Mary had been dismayed at first at the idea of her young son pretending to shoot and kill, even if the victims were green and the two inches high.

"Daddy, when I grow up, I'm going to be a solider just like you were," John's eldest would say as he trailed a finger over the buttons on John's marine uniform.

"Your mother would have a heart attack," John always said back.

"I want to be a hero," Dean said seriously, looking up at his father with such reverence that the man couldn't help but nod and ruffle the little boy's hair.

"Maybe one day you will be," he said. "But you don't have to be a solider to be a hero."

xxx

When Sam was in fifth grade, the Winchesters spent a few months in Southern Arkansas living out of a crappy trailer with an even crappier air conditioner. The driveway – more accurately, the narrow dirt path with overgrown weeds along the edges – was close to a mile long and the boys had to trudge up and down it everyday in the blistering heat of the South. By the time they got home, Sam's floppy hair was glued to his temples and Dean's shirt was often slung over his shoulder, backpack dragging from one hand.

"I miss Maryland," the fifteen-year-old groaned as he crumpled onto the couch, careful not to land on the spring that was sticking out of it.

"You said yesterday that you hated Maryland," Sam reminded him. "You said it was small and windy and smelled like crabs." Dean huffed out a frustrated sigh.

"Yeah, well yesterday it wasn't a hundred freaking degrees, was it?" The teenager craned his neck up to find his little brother seated at the small table, already pulling out a folder from his schoolbag. "Sammy, please tell me you aren't doing homework. We have a three-day weekend for Christ's sake. Don't you want to do something fun?"

"Like what?" Sam said, sarcasm edging into his words. "Go shooting? Wrestle? No."

"You're in rare form tonight," Dean muttered, picking up a lighter that was lying on the floor and flicking the flame on and then off again. He stared at the miniature fire with fascination, wishing he had a cigarette. Not that Dean smoked often; he'd really only had a couple, but he was itching to do something and smoking seemed as good as anything.

"Whatever," Sam muttered, bending his head over the worksheet in front of him. Dean watched him for a minute before collapsing backwards onto the cushions, staring at the building mildew on the ceiling. His dad said they only had to stay here for the rest of the school year and that meant exactly sixteen more days in this dump, not counting weekends. God only knew where John was at the moment; he'd left to go on a Hunt three or four days ago and said he wouldn't be home for a week.

"Wanna go down to the creek?" Dean asked a while later. There was sweat beading on his forehead even though he'd stripped down to his boxers as soon as he got in the door. Sam was fully dressed but Dean knew by the way he kept readjusting his grip on his pencil that his little brother was feeling the heat too. It was thick and heavy, like an inescapable wool blanket trying to smother them.

"Not really."

"C'mon, let's go for a little bit. I'm dying here. You don't me to walk around naked do you?" Even at eleven, Sam had perfected his disgusted-beyond-belief face and he spared his brother no expression of loathing.

"Fine," Sam said. "But only because it's a thousand degrees in here. Maybe we should skip dinner the next couple nights and buy a fan instead," he mused, only half-kidding. Dean leapt up at the first word, scrambling into a pair of athletic shorts he'd stolen from his last school's locker room. Sam didn't bother changing and the boys left the trailer a minute later, walking shoulder to shoulder through the field around back. There was no usual goofing off on Dean's part, no shoving or pulling or teasing. It was too damn hot for that. All he could think about was how good a bottle of soda would sound right now, especially if Heather from Science class was sitting next to him. But it was a five-mile walk into town and with today's temperatures, Dean would probably die before he reached the town's only diner.

When they got to the creek, Dean immediately plunged forward, letting his toes sink into the sticky clay creekbed, ducking under the surface and coming up with hair and eyelashes dripped with dirty creek water.

"Sam!" he called, glancing around for his brother. "Why aren't you coming in?"

"I don't feel like it," Sam said crossly, sitting under the shade of a large tree, knees drawn up to his chest and a scowl on his lips. The water was cool and felt good against Dean's sweaty skin but he swam to the edge and dropped to the ground beside his brother, making sure to shake his head enough to splatter droplets onto Sam. The younger boy inched away, refusing to look at him.

"What's up, Sammy?"

"Nothing."

"Hey," Dean said softly, noticing the way Sam was worrying his bottom lip. "What's wrong?"

"You'll get mad at me," Sam said quietly, still looking in the opposite direction. "You and Dad are going to be so mad."

"When was the last time I was mad at you?" At least the stupid question got Sam to look at his brother, even if it was only to roll his eyes.

"This morning. You got mad at me when I woke you up for school."

"I wasn't _that _mad." At this, Sam hiked up his t-shirt to display a bruise approximately the size and shape of Dean's right foot. The elder Winchester grinned sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that." Sam lowered his shirt and shrugged.

"I've had worse."

"Sammy, I promise I'm not going to be mad. We don't have to tell Dad. I don't like making him angry any more than you do." Sam turned his whole body to face Dean, dropping his gaze to the band logo on his brother's t-shirt and taking a deep breath. Dean was right; he wouldn't get mad like John would. Dean always had his brother's back, Sam could trust him.

"I kinda told someone what we do."

The words would have been followed by a stunned silence if it hadn't been for the annoying and ever-constant drone of the crickets hidden in the tall grasses. The humming and buzzing bit at the air, following Sam's statement like a series of exclamation points.

"See?" he whispered a minute later. "I told you you would be mad." Dean stood, dry grass stabbing at the underside of his feet but he paid no attention as he started pacing, one hand raking through his damp hair, causing it to stand up on end.

"Who?" Dean asked a minute later as Sam watched him from the ground. "Who was it?"

"This dumb kid in my gym class. We kind of got in a fight." Dean stopped his pacing to face Sam, green eyes confused. There was water dripping down his face but Sam wasn't sure if it was from the creek or if his brother has simply started sweating again.

"_You_ got in a fight?" Sam bristled at his brother's implication. It's true that usually it was Dean who got into trouble at school but it's not like Sam didn't know his way around his own two fists.

"Yes. And I won by the way." Dean let his troubled expression morph into a smirk.

"Of course you did."

"Dean, that's the point. Dad is going to kill me." A rare set of tears was quivering were quivering in Sam's hazel eyes, threatening to break the child right there on the dry Arkansas dirt.

"Sammy, we'll figure it out. We don't have to tell Dad." Sam swallowed hard, staring out at the creek, fingers knotted together in a tight grimace. He hated Arkansas as much as Dean did, maybe more. It was like living in the inside of a freaking volcano, a volcano that hosted millions of mosquitoes. More than that though, it was the people he hated the most, the ignorant kids at his school that were intent on making Sam feel as unwelcome as possible because he hadn't grown up in this stupid town. Apparently if you weren't born and raised in Small Town, USA, you automatically didn't fit in.

"How did it start anyway?" Dean asked, dropping to the ground again and lying flat on his back, crisis averted. If he had to, he'd go to the kid's house and scare the crap out of him; Dean was intimidating enough that it should work. It's not like their father had to find out at all.

"We were doing some dumb project for Memorial Day and I told him Dad was an ex-marine, 'cause you know, Memorial Day and all. Then he called Dad a "useless Jarhead" and -," Sam shrugged. "I hit him."

"Once?" Sam allowed a small smile to play across his lips as he remembered the look on the kid's face right before Sam let his fist fly. He certainly hadn't been expecting _that _from scrawny Sam Winchester.

"Four times," Sam admitted and Dean laughed, raising his palm for a high five, which Sam accepted only a little sheepishly.

"I still don't get how hunting got brought up," Dean said, squinting against the sun at his brother, who was just a silhouette above him. He slapped lazily at a mosquito crawling up his arm, his hand coming away sticky with blood and sweat. The creek was starting to sound good again.

"Well, as I was hitting him, I might have been saying some stuff. You know, about how Dad was a real hero because he hunted and killed things that Jacob – that's the kid probably had nightmares about."

"What'd he say to that?" Sam's smirk grew bigger.

"His mouth was too full of blood to answer." Dean shook his head, sitting up again, restless even in the heat.

"He probably doesn't even remember you saying it," Dean commented. "He was probably scared out of his wits enough that he won't remember."

"I guess," Sam said, smirk gone and replaced by more lip biting. "I don't know what happened. I just got so mad and started saying crap."

"Aw, it's okay Sammy." Dean grinned and nudged Sam playfully then stood up and easily threw the eleven-year-old over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. "They probably think you're just some crazy lunatic."

"Dean!" Sam shrieked, hair falling over his eyes as he beat his fists on Dean's back. "Let me go!"

"Oh, you want me to let you go?" Dean said mischievously, picking his way through the weeds down to the water. "Okay then…if you insist."

And he dropped Sam into the creek, clothes and all, before diving in himself, spending a good ten seconds under the water before resurfacing to find a spluttering Sam doing the same. His hair was flipped back away from his eyes and his shirt was stuck to him as if glued there, but already the summer flush was gone from his cheeks and those hazel eyes were a little less miserable.

"You suck!" Sam announced but then swept the length of his arm across the water, effectively dousing his brother in a large wave.

"At least I don't have girl's hair," Dean fired back, sending forward a splash of his own. The brothers stayed in the creek for the rest of the afternoon and not another word about the incident at school was brought up.

Later that night, the air had cooled off a considerable amount although Dean kept the trailer door propped open with his boot in order to keep the air moving inside the cramped space. Dean was lying on the couch, his feet hanging off one end; usually he slept on the bed and Sam took the couch but his little brother had looked so exhausted when they got back that Dean insisted Sam take the bed, however uncomfortable the mattress was. The lights were off but Dean was flipping through a magazine by moonlight, not really seeing the pictures in front of him but thinking of the damage control he'd have to conduct Tuesday at school. He'd have to teach that brat a lesson, have to do it out of Sam's view because he didn't want Sam to think he hadn't handled it, wanted Sam to be confident that he _had_ handled it, because a Winchester should be able to start a fight and win. Hell, a Winchester should be able to win any fight regardless of who started it.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was small and sleepy as it called out to him and Dean swung his feet off the couch, wincing when that loose spring dug into his thigh. He went to stand at the doorway of their one bedroom, leaning his head into the room to find Sam on top of the blankets, staring at the dark ceiling.

"What's up, Sammy? Can't sleep?"

"I feel bad about what I did to Jacob." He didn't look at Dean as he said it, just stared at the ceiling, hands clenched into tiny fists at his side. Dean scoffed.

"Don't. He sounds like a jerk."

"Dean." It was a plea, soft and quiet. Sam turned on his side, curling into a ball, his back toward his big brother. Dean took a few steps forward until he was standing at the end of the bed, could just make out Sam's tortured expression, the tears from earlier reappearing and falling onto the sheets. "I don't want to turn into Dad," Sam said. "I don't want to be a soldier." Dean went around the side of the bed and sat next to his little brother, his calloused hand beginning to rub soothing circles over Sam's back. The boy hiccupped through his tears. "I-I don't want to-to be a soldier," he repeated, turning his face into the pillow.

"Okay," Dean said softly. "You don't have to be, Sam. You can be anything you want." Sam hiccupped again, the sound turning into an abrasive cough and he sat up against the wooden headboard, rubbing at his eyes.

"Really?"

"Sure," Dean lied easily, feeling the stretch of pain deep in his chest. If it was up to him, Sam would become an astronaut or a scientist or even a teacher. The kid sitting in front of him wasn't cut out for Hunting, was too gentle and contemplative for this rough way of living. He shouldn't be beating up kids at school; that was Dean's job. John didn't see it that way though and Dean knew that both of them were destined to continue this life for the rest of their lives, no matter what. But Sam didn't have to know that, not right now.

Sam launched his thin body forward until his arms were wrapped around Dean. "I want to do good things like you and Dad," he mumbled into Dean's neck, his breath prickly and hot against Dean's clammy skin. "But I don't want to be a solider anymore."

Dean clung tight to his little brother, keeping Sam in his arms until the child fell asleep again and then he laid him back on the bed, covering him with a ratty sheet as the night turned even cooler. As he was standing there, right before he went back to reading his magazine and keeping watch, Dean pulled a small object from his pocket, letting the piece of plastic bite into his palm as he clenched it in his fingers.

"It's okay Sammy," he murmured. "You don't have to be a solider to be a hero."


End file.
